Hartford Business Journal

10 Hartford Business Journal • March 18, 2019 • www.HartfordBusiness.com By Gregory Seay gseay@hartfordbusiness.com A s Hartford's Dunkin' Donuts Park readies for its April 11 home-opener and its third season host- ing the Eastern League Double-A Yard Goats, the downtown stadium has already logged some impressive milestones. It's been ranked the nation's best minor-league park two straight years. Last year, more than half, or 47 of the ballpark's home games were sellouts — drawing more than 400,000 visitors in all — better than each of its first two seasons, Yard Goats team officials said. Though not yet title bound, Yard Goats fans rave about their team-stadium's intimacy and its affordability, which were priorities, the city and team says, in the design and construction of the $71 million publicly financed stadium. However, amid those successes, the ballpark is barely into the early innings of fulfilling what proponents say is its ultimate mission and the reason it was built: Serving as an economic- development magnet to leverage tens of millions of dollars in public funds to attract hun- dreds of millions more in private investment around Hartford's newest entertainment venue. While the stadium has brought new energy and fans to the city during the spring and summer months, it has so far largely struck out in delivering on its promise to spur development in Hartford's Downtown North (DoNo) quadrant, a linchpin of the city's plan to pay for the stadium. The addition of taxable DoNo de- velopment was supposed to help the city pay the approximate $4.6 million annual debt on the ballpark's bonds. Currently, the city only draws about $1 million from its ballpark lease and a share of the team's non-base- ball revenue, leav- ing city taxpayers to foot the more than $3 million annual deficit. The state, in its more than $550 million bailout of the city last year, refused to pay off the stadium debt. It also yanked Hartford's ability to collect a stadium-ticket sales tax to pay for it. Lingering skepticism, fueled by a pending, multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the city by the stadium's ex- developer, remains about whether the ballpark will deliver on supporters' ambitious vision for sparking redevel- opment of the adjoining DoNo parcels just north of I-84. At least one Hartford promoter still calls the ballpark a financial albatross for the city, reigniting the debate over whether it's smart policy for state and lo- cal governments to use taxpayer money to fund sports stadiums. Many econo- mists say it's not. But there is some hope for the future. Fairfield County developer Randy Salvatore, who is the city's choice to redevelop DoNo, said he is eagerly await- ing the go-ahead with his $200 million vision to transform acres of mostly surface parking into a mixed develop- ment of apartments, condominiums/ townhouses, a supermarket, other retail and office space and a parking garage. He says his project is nearly shovel ready. Standing in his way is the pend- ing litigation between the city and Centerplan Construction, which was fired from the stadium and DoNo project and then sued the city for $90 million, alleging wrongful termina- tion. Centerplan has placed liens on all the city's DoNo parcels, which means development can't move forward until the nearly two-year-old case is resolved. A verdict may come sooner than ex- pected: The judge in the case recently agreed to Centerplan's request to speed up the trial's start by three months; it's now scheduled to begin June 18. What's not clear is the impact a Centerplan court victory might have Field of Urban Dreams Three seasons in, Hartford's $71M ballpark has sparked new energy but not promised development Randy Salvatore, CEO & President, RMS Cos. Glendowlyn L. H. Thames, President, Hartford City Council Hartford's Dunkin' Donuts Park, home of the Eastern League Double-A Yard Goats, has found early success drawing plaudits for its design and fan experience. However, it has yet to attain the one goal for which it was built: Economic revival of the city's Downtown North quadrant. IMAGE | CONTRIBUTED

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